Immortality
by Alien Emerald
Summary: Richard dies in a boating accident, and is trapped in a world where you are half way between life and death.He Meets Kori, a girl who has lived in the world for more than 100 years, and remembers nothing about her past. They must discover a way out. RicKo
1. Chapter 1

Immortality

Richard dies in a boating accident, and is trapped in a world where you are half way between life and death, with no way back, and no way forward. When he awakes, he finds himself with a girl that has been in that world for over 100 years, who has forgotten everything about her past life. They now live together in the Land of Immortality, where everything is far from what it should be. StarRob. Based on the story Everlost by Neal Shusterman.

If it was a sunny day, there would be no clouds. If there were no clouds, there would be no rain. If there was no rain, there would be no lightning. And if there was no lightning, there would be 2 survivors. Unfortunately, it wasn't a sunny day. And there was only 1 survivor swimming frantically in the Atlantic Ocean, on the day when it happened.

One boat had set sail that day, heading towards the East Coast. The sky was filled with gloom, and clouds of grey set there sites on the East Coast as well. The sky was trembling with thunder and lightning, while it let the rain fall from its grey belly. Streaks of lightning were sent crackling through the sky, just waiting for a negative charge to strike at. It seemed as if it knew all to well that a boat was headed that way. It lingered right on top of the East Coast, suspiciously stopping there after being blown by the wind over 700 miles east.

The boat came at a speed of 50 miles an hour. Its small roof covered a little over half the boat, protecting the passengers from the down-pour. One boy, and one girl where on the small white boat, one was driving the other was huddled in a coat in the passenger seat. The one driving had spiky black hair, with big blue eyes. He had a muscular body, and was very fit. His name was Richard Grayson. He was around 20 years old, and had decided to take his cousin out on a boating trip that day. Unfortunately for him, he had no idea that a storm was settled into the coast. The weather report had said clear and sunny skies, but it was far from that. He had his eyes narrowed on the blue water in front of them, while trying to see past the rain covered window. His cousin, Rachel Roth, who was shivering under the large black rain jacket, had shoulder length blackish purple hair, with big violet eyes. She was looking out at the churning of the waves, a hopeless look in her eyes. She watched as the lightning struck, and counted until she heard the thunder.

A flash lit the sky. _1, 2, 3. . . _A roar filled her ears, and made her shiver with fear. They were only three miles away from the heart of the storm. She shifted her eyes from the sky, and looked at her cousin who had his hands on the wheel, with a terrified look in his eyes.

"Richard," Rachel spoke in a hoarse voice, "did you hear that? The storm is only three miles away."

"Yes," Richard said, "I'm going to try to avoid the storm, but with the wind blowing like this, I don't know if it's possible."

"It's like the storm is pulling us into it," Rachel said, "I've never seen anything like it before."

"Try not to sound ridiculous, Rae. It's only the wind." Richard spoke, but with a hint of fear in his voice. For he too, knew, that the storm was in fact, pulling them towards it. Wind or no wind.

A flash of light filled the gloomy sky once again. Rachel counted, _1, 2, _and once again her heart leapt as the thunderous roar filled her ears. She was scared. "Can't you try to go back, Richard?" She asked her cousin, hope filling her mind.

"I wish I could, but it's not that easy." Richard spoke in confidence, but they both knew he was drowning in fear. "We're practically being sucked to the center of the storm; I can hardly turn the wheel."

At that point, Rachel was quiet. She knew something was going to happen. And she let that thought consume her, as she hoped for the best.

Lightning struck once more, and that time there was hardly a half of a second before the thunder filled her ears with the horror that filled her mind. She was scared. Her world caved in around her, and she could hardly breathe.

At just that moment, the boat began to spin, and a wave roared up beside them. They had only a moment to think, and at that point Rachel grabbed the handle bar that was next to her. Richard, looked for something, and found nothing. He clung to his seat, and waited for the wave to wash over him.

It did not.

It pushed Richard over the side, as the rest of the wave flooded the boat. He tried to scream, he tried to grab for something, but before he knew it he was underwater. He was spinning, just as the boat had, but now he was captured by the wave, unable to breathe or see.

He opened his eyes. He expected to see water, churning in front of him. Instead he saw a black pool of light, which he was getting sucked into! He couldn't move, he just closed his eyes. He couldn't even feel the pain in his lungs anymore; he figured that he was dead. But he was not.

**Ok, I hope you people enjoyed! I will be updating soon, as long as I get a few reviews. Please, constructive criticism is welcome, but please do not flame me. I don't like it when people tell me that I deserve to die because I am a horrible writer. I used to get quite a lot of that. I did not make the plot of this story right of the back of my hand; I got the plot from the book called Everlost, by Neal Shusterman. So give half the credit to him. **

**Review please, that's the only way I'll update!!!**

**- Alien**


	2. A light in the dark

Before Richard Grayson awoke, the only thing his mind had registered at that point was that he was dead. He could not feel anything around him, as much as he would have liked to feel the hard ground beneath his body, he felt nothing. He wanted more than anything in the world to feel pain run down his spine, because he would then know he was still alive. He soon realized that he was not breathing, for he no longer needed to. He still continued to inhale and exhale, for it brought him comfort to feel his chest rise and fall. Or at least have the thought of the feeling.

He could open his eyes, but he never did. He somehow knew that when he opened them, he would find himself in some cruel place beneath the earth, without any hope of escaping. He tried focus on the ground beneath him, but for all he knew, he was floating in air. He tried to send the waves of jarred pain through his body, but all he thought of was his deceived mind. He realized that lying in a place unknown wouldn't help matters much, so he decided to open his eyes to the terrors around him.

He prepared to open his eyes to the most hideous site his eyes had ever seen. Maybe he was six feet under, possibly burning in Hell. He was ready for the worst, and knew for a fact that the site in front of him would be unbearable.

Oh, how wrong he was.

The moment he opened his eyes, he thought an angel graced his presence. A girl was peering over him, as if he was the strangest thing she had ever seen. She had long, crimson hair that was draped over her shoulder, brushing his face. Her short bangs covered the side of her eyes, framing her delicate face. Her eyes were two rich pools of emerald water, unlike anything he had seen before. Her eyes were not normal. She did not have a colored iris, then white surrounding it. Her eye was a dark green for a pupil, then an emerald iris. But as for the part of her eye that was supposed to be off-white, it was a light green. It seemed to frame her eyes, making them more endearing than anything about her. Her brows were drawn together in interest and confusion, making her face seem soft and innocent.

Richard only stared. It was the most amazing thing he had seen, he thought for sure he was in heaven, and this was his angel. It set him in a state of shock, because he now realized that he was happy to die. He loved this girl. He had the strongest urge to pull her into a deep kiss, making himself feel pleasure and desire, because that was all he wanted to feel then. Before he had a chance, she spoke.

"How lovely," she said, her voice soft as a birds "you are finally awake."

Richard only sat in shock, watching as she drew her brows together in confusion.

"Can you not speak?" she said, sounding so innocent and naïve. He thought it was the cutest thing he had ever heard.

"I-uh-um…." Richard began, but stopped when she smiled. He couldn't stand it, she was so beautiful. He had to dig his fingers into the ground to keep from pulling her towards him in a lip-lock. "I'm Richard Grayson."

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Grayson," she said as she took his hand and pulled him up. "I would tell you my name, but I forgot it years and years ago."

"How do you forget your name?" Richard asked, watching as she looked down at her mud covered feet, the corners of her mouth tilting down in a frown.

"You forget many things when you are trapped here for over 50 years, with nothing to do, and no where to go," she spoke softly, as if saying anything louder would blow the world out of proportions. "The only thing that I have not forgotten is what I look like, only because I died with a picture of me in my pocket."

Richard was stunned. She was over 50 years old, yet she looked as if she was younger than 20. "You don't look a year over 18," Richard said, "how can you have been alive for over 50 years?"

"That's just it," she said, smiling, "I am—we aren't alive. We are in the land of Immortality, where you are half way between life and death. Very few people ever get here, only the lives that were taken away without a prayer. Here we can not age, only because the image we die with is the image we retain." She sighed, and looked down again at her mud covered feet.

"How did you die?" Richard asked, hoping that she would have remembered that.

"That was the only thing I remember about my past," she said, watching the waves that washed slowly over the sand as they vanished, "was how I died. I remember that someone was after me, trying to kill me because they were jealous of me; they always wanted everything I had. But one day, he decided he wanted more than just to murder me, he wanted me. He wanted to keep me as his little toy, to rape me whenever he pleased. So he trapped me, locked me away from the world in a shack in the forest. Everyday, he would come into that shack to rape me, and there was nothing I could do about it. I tried so many times to escape, but he had me in a special chain, so every time I would struggle against them, I would bleed.

"He would sometimes cut me, make me bleed, because he said he liked it when I bled. I cried, day after day, watching as scars healed, and new ones came. I hated him; I wanted nothing more than to make him suffer. I was stronger than him, and he knew it. That was the only reason he locked me up, and another reason he was jealous of me." She stopped and smiled at Richard. Richard was shocked by the action, because he fully expected to see her cry. "Each day, I grew stronger and stronger; adrenalin was the only energy I was running on. One day, when he left, I knew I had to escape. I didn't care if my hands were ripped off; I had to get away from him. The moment he left the shack, I pulled as hard as I could on my hands, pain filling my body, making my head pound. Once my hands began to bleed and tear, it was easy to slip through the chains. I had no shoes on, only a white tank top, and blue jeans. So I ran. I ran out the door, feeling every needle and pin that punctured my bare feet. I ran to a rocky cliff, where there was a ledge that dropped 600 feet down. That was when I heard him coming, yelling my name, telling me how I was going to regret ever being born.

"I couldn't bear to be caught again, trapped up inside there like a rat. So I tried to climb down the ledge. I made it to about 20 feet, and then I saw him look over the edge. I freaked out, and tried to climb down faster, but he was quicker. He came within 3 feet of me, I panicked, and screamed. That was when I slipped. I fell off of the ledge, and saw a swirl of black light around me. The only thing I remember is seeing his face, smiling at me from the ledge. I had a weird feeling once I woke up, that he had fallen as well. But I couldn't be sure," she stopped and looked at Richard, who was shocked beyond belief. "I died with mud on my feet, and blood on my hands. That is how I will remain for all eternity."

Richard looked down at her feet, which were buried in sand. Her feet looked so fragile, so perfect. But they were covered in mud, which still seemed to be sliding down her pale skin. Then he looked at her hands. It was the most terrifying thing he had seen. Her hands were the hands of a model, so skinny and long, covered by pale perfect skin. Yet he could not see the beautiful pale skin, he could only see torn pieces, cover in cherry blood. The cuffs had ripped her skin so far, that it ripped the skin right down to the bone. Her wrists were either a mess of torn skin and blood, or a hard white bone. Just like her feet, he could still see the blood dripping from her hands, the same drip forming over and over again.

"Doesn't it hurt?" Richard asked, with a touch of sympathy in his voice. She looked in his eyes, and followed his gaze to her hands. She clenched both of them up into two tiny fists, her knuckles turning white, with blood dripping off of them.

"You can not feel anything here," she said, unclenching her fists. "You can only feel what you think you feel. You do not need to breathe, yet all new souls pretend to, as if it is still some form of remembering their past lives. You could fall from the sky, and you would not feel your body slam into the ground, or the rush of adrenalin go through your veins and pump in your head. Although, we all wish we could."

"You mean, we don't have any of our senses?" Richard asked, still confused as to why he was still able to see.

"Only the necessary ones," she said, looking Richard directly in the eyes. "We need to see, because we need to find our way around this place. We need to hear, to be able to communicate with one-another. We can talk, only if it was something you carried over with you from your living life. We can not taste, because we do not need to eat. Nor do we have anything to eat. We can not smell, because there is absolutely nothing to smell. And we can not feel, because that is the one connection to the living that the Beast will not allow."

"Who's the Beast?" Richard asked, still completely confused as to what was happening. Trying to convince himself that this was only a dream.

"The ruler of the land of Immortality," the girl said, speaking so confidently, yet with so much rage in her voice. "Souls say that he was once a man, a young and handsome man, who was killed falling from a ledge. They say once he died, his soul traveled back to his home. He went back to his home, and realized that he had lost something. His head became filled with emotions, the only thing that can weigh one down here, and he began to sink. He sunk much faster than normal, because all of the emotion he felt pushed him down. He—"

Richard cut her off. "Wait, what do you mean 'he sunk much faster than normal'? What is normal sinking around here?"

"It is quite complicated, you see. Right now we are standing in a dead spot, a place where someone, or something, has left the living. Here, the ground becomes solid, because of death. But when you leave a dead spot, you are walking on the ground of the living, which is not ours. In the land of the living, we sink into the ground. If we do not escape the ground in time, we are sucked to the bottom of the earth, remaining there for all of eternity. So wherever there is death, there is solid life for us." She finished, seeming quite proud of herself for giving such details.

"Now, as I was saying about the Beast," she continued. "He sunk to the very center of the earth. Souls say that he had no patience, and he could not bear to remain in the earth for all of eternity. So he pulled himself back up. Souls say he fought his way all the way to the very top of the earth, and while he was fighting it all, he envisioned himself as a monster, fighting a war against the world. In the land of Immortality, whatever you think you are, you are. So since the Beast envisioned himself as a monster, he came out one.

"I have never seen him myself, but other souls say he is the most revolting creature you shall ever see. He is so frightening, all of the souls here bow to him, and will do whatever they have to not to get there heads ripped apart. He travels on a ship, with an enslaved crew, looking for new souls to torture." She paused. "And I am going to make it my job, to get revenge on him."

"Why would you want to have revenge on him?" Richard asked, trying to keep it one question at a time.

"Because he is the man that made my life miserable for 8 years," she said, looking like she was trying to fight back tears. "He is the one that made me fall that day, and he is the one who shall pay for it."

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**Hello, sorry for the long wait to update. I was busy, and I didn't really think anyone would like my story. I know it isn't a long chapter, but I'm working on it!**

**R&R PLEASE!!! **

**-Alien**


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